The flight of dragons glided
lazily overhead, the sun dancing across their shining hides,
creating a living rainbow of prismatic color that reflected down onto
the ground below. Enormous in comparison to the human riders they bore,
the dragons made the scattered buildings below them look
like a children’s fragile playthings.

The nearest village was at least
ten miles beyond the furthest buildings of the farm, over dauntingly
rough and dangerous terrain. On horseback, a trip to the village could
take an entire day, there and back once more. If one left first thing in
the predawn morning, they would not return until long after sundown of
the same day. It was not a journey to take lightly.

This particular plot of land,
surrounded by rocky cliffs and uncounted acres of forest, was many miles
from the nearest barony. It simply was not worth the time
and effort of the closest local baron to add it to his holdings.

The entire farm was almost four
acres in size. It featured a reasonably kept, whitewashed stone cottage,
a barn made of mixed stones and heavily weathered lumber, a few patched
and ragged animal pens, a small, fenced cemetery, and a little beyond
that barn, a battered chicken coop that was now in the process of being
cleaned. It was a young woman with long white-blonde hair pulled back
into a loose bun at the nape of her neck and large, dark brown eyes that
contained occasional flashes of copper and gold.

She was almost finished cleaning
the coop, after a long, hot day of shoveling and scrubbing. It was
thankless work as the hens, being only slightly above pigs in
cleanliness, simply did not care how their home looked and smelled,
unlike the humans who had to collect their freshly laid eggs on a daily
basis.

The small flock of elderly hens
that clucked at her, done for the day with hunting for juicy,
protein-rich bugs outside, were disturbed by Aya’s continued intrusion,
as they wanted to settle back into their nests, and she had broken the
relative peace of their comfortable, although stinking, wood and wire
home. She wondered why she even bothered to do more than shovel out the
collected manure, as it did not matter how much one scrubbed, the stink
never went away. It truly seemed to be an exercise in futility.

After changing out the straw in
the last two nesting boxes, it was a blessing to be able to step out of
the cramped, humid coop, into the fresh, early evening air. Aya had to
remind herself not to use her filthy hand to brush her hair, which had
escaped its tether at the nape of her neck, out of her eyes.

As she gazed out into the waning
day, she watched the rainbow-colored flight of dragons and their riders
on their evening flyover, now traveling along the edge of the forest
that lay about a quarter mile from where she stood. It took Aya a moment
before she remembered to breathe again.

The dragons always astounded
her, no matter how many times she might see them. Despite the creatures’
great size, they seemed so very graceful as they made their way through
the air. They dipped and soared, wingtip to wingtip, in a wondrous
aerial ballet.

She did not remember ever having
seen them on the ground, which she found surprising. You would think
they would have to land sometime if only to rest the
muscles that supported and moved their massive wings.

As far as she could tell, they
came in every conceivable color, and even a few she had never thought
existed. Even if she would never be able to have a dragon of her very
own, just being able to touch one, once, would be reward enough for her
patience.

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